So there I was. The lovely mage Effilda by my side. I, the Paladin, guardian of his lady love, and together we would take on the enemies of Honor Hold.

And let me say, Retribution is more fun than Reckoning.

“Let me tell you: There’s gonna be a Reckoning!”

“Oh? When?”

“I Reckon you’ll notice.”

“Oh, ya?”

“It’s a coming! Reckoning train on it’s way!”

“ETA?”

“Oh, anytime now. You just wait.”

“O’rly?”

“I hate you guys. Die already.”

— Man, that Protection grinding was very effective, in a way, for certain mobs. It’s like the mobs did me the favor by beating themselves to death on my shield and awesomeness.

But for Outlands goodness, and finishing up the Plaguelands business, I’ve been specced Retribution. And with the change to 30 minute seals, and the 30 minute blessing glyph, and 30 minutes of Righteous Fury, I can now actively do strikes and judgements and hammers and consecrates. Oh, yeah, single targets are crushed.

My Retribution spec is going to be a lot more fun than waiting for Reckoning to kill of mobs of mobs.

Anyway, as I was saying, we’re outside of Honor Hold. We move to the Armory and start taking out ghosts. And I was thinking to myself “I sure wish I had some kind of ranged pull.” A couple body pulls later I see another icon up by my Righteous Defense icon. Hmm. I don’t play Honorus all that much. I’ve leveled his Inscription so that Minor Inscription Research provides no more discoveries, but not being 65 he can’t learn Northrend Research yet.

But there it was. My Paladin taunt. 54 mana, 30 yard range. The Hand of Reckoning. Available at level 16. Four levels earlier than Exorcism which used to only work on Undead, but Demons now too. I note that Hand of Reckoning does a touch of Holy Damage, undoubtedly put in before “any abilities that causes aggro gets you the tap” was implemented.

Well, they’ve sure dumbed down the Paladins, haven’t they? So much for the Holy Warrior running into battle. They can stay out of range of all enemies and strategically pull like anyone else. Like a Hunter, say.

Paladins go from no range pulling ability, to pulling Undead, to pulling Demons too, to now pulling anything. Today’s Paladins aren’t going to understand what it meant to be a Paladin from the days of old. When you walked to Shadowfang Keep uphill, in the snow, both ways, on a PvP server. They won’t be able to relate to the dedication it took.

And, you know, maybe we’re jumping the shark now. All classes can do everything.

Raiding is pretty much an AoE fest nowadays. If you can’t AoE you may as well stay home. Or maybe they’ll invite you along to bring cookies or something. I purposefully glyphed my Shaman’s Thunderstorm to NOT knock mobs back. What was a nice safety feature, and useful in clearing mobs off clothies, became a liability. “Who threw the patrol back into the group we hadn’t pulled yet??!??!” But, dangit, I needed a means to go stand in the center of a furball and hit EVERYTHING for at least 2500 damage. Granted, that’s laughable too. I think Warlocks sneeze and whole populations go under.

So. Paladins have two taunts now. A “ranged pull” taunt. And a “get off my friends” taunt. Good thing, I never got the boomerang.

Part 2.

Here’s a lament out to the Gnome Warlock we ran into in Zeth’Gor last night. Oh, you’re a badass. Oh yeah, baby. Got the Fel Guard. You’re a fearin’ and a cheerin, and you’re saving Humanity. We’re looking for medallions and there’s orcs running around everywhere, chattering skulls indicating you’d gotten them all. “Good luck to you,” I’m thinking. I noticed one of those mobs had a real name. Nice. Again, “Good luck to you.”

So, color me surprised when this named mob is running at me. AT me, I’m it’s target. With intent to kill. He’s untapped, his name is in red. Hmm. Odd. “One fear too many, my friend?” Well, Orcs is for smashing, and we take him down, take him down town. Bookem, Dano. Tada! Achievement time. It seems the lovely Effilda and I earned the achievement of killing a semi-rare mob. Woot. He dropped a blue item, some mail armor with +Spirit. (Are you kidding me??) I pass since Effilda will get a shard out of it for use in her enchanting.

Ya know, the item was meaningless. I can make blues to disenchant. I’d have given it to you. Except for this niggling little detail: You’re whiney, arrogant, and assumed we’re petty. Something comes running at me, to attack me, and I fight back and defeat it, damn right I’m going to loot it. Do a better job at whatever you Warlocks are good at if you think the “loots” should be yours.